


Until death takes us up to a star

by Ailendolin



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Era, Depression, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Inspired by The Old Guard, Loneliness, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Will is immortal, it changes nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28629714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ailendolin/pseuds/Ailendolin
Summary: For some reason Will can’t fathom, Tom has decided on the day they first met that they were destined to become the best of friends. No matter where Will goes, Tom goes with him, trailing after him like a lost puppy. Will wants to push him away, wants to scream in his face that Tom will soon die, that Will can’t bear to carry anymore grief and guilt on his weary soul.He never does, though. Somehow the thought of being responsible for the light dimming in Tom’s eyes even before death snuffs it out is even harder to bear than the fear of losing him one day is. Will knows he can live with the latter – has done so many times before.He’s not so sure he can live with killing Tom’s spirit with his own angry words.Will Schofield cannot die. It changes nothing.
Relationships: Joseph Blake & William Schofield, Lauri & William Schofield, Tom Blake & William Schofield, Tom Blake/William Schofield, William Schofield & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 40





	Until death takes us up to a star

**Author's Note:**

> I saw The Old Guard two weeks or so ago for the first time and my thoughts immediately went, "What if Will was immortal?" This is the result. 
> 
> **Warnings:** Due to the topic of immortality, this fic will include depictions of violence, death, suicide and depression. Most of it is not particularly graphic but Will dies _a lot_ in different ways so proceed with caution. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I own neither 1917 and make no money with this. The title comes from the song "The Starry Night" from the muscial Starry.

**Until death takes us up to a star**

_Do the answers wait for us afar  
Until death takes us up to a star?  
What happens when we die?  
The answer's in the sky_

**The Starry Night – Starry the Musical**

**1349**

The first time Will dies, Europe is in the middle of the Plague Pandemic. They call it the Black Death, and he is barely 25 years old when he succumbs to it. He isn’t surprised when he develops symptoms, not after losing both his parents, his sister and his nieces to it. He cares for them day and night, washes their skin, gives them water, makes sure they are as comfortable as they possibly can be.

It's not enough.

He holds their hands when the time comes so they do not have to face it alone, and then he grieves.

When it is his turn there is no one left to hold his hand. The disease is cruel and painful, and Will suffers through it on his own. His only comfort lies in the knowledge that he will see his family again, soon.

He dies on a chilly April day when night falls and the first stars twinkle into existence. It’s a relief.

He wakes up the next morning in a cart full of bodies headed for a mass grave.

* * *

**1350**

The Black Death rages on and people die but Will does not. He lives on no matter what he does, no matter what happens to him. It takes him a while to realize that. It takes him a lot longer to come to terms with it. There are moments he’s not proud of – moments when he tries to force himself to let go of life, moments when he invites death in with open arms and does everything he can think of to finally leave this world behind for good.

It never lasts. When he gets hurt, he heals. When he dies, he comes back to life. Over and over again. It’s a vicious cycle, one that he can’t break.

By the time Will finally accepts that, he’s found out that some ways of dying are more painful than others.

He tries to avoid those now.

* * *

**1492**

Will saw the beginning of the Renaissance era in the 1450’s, and the part of him that doesn’t feel so terribly lost all the time is glad for it. It feels a bit like a light coming back into the world after a long dark night, and he supposes that’s exactly what it is.

But he is restless. After over a century of existing, his home doesn’t bring him comfort anymore. There is no one left he once knew, no one left to care about, so he begins to wander. When he gets the opportunity to join Christopher Columbus on his voyage to find a westward passage to the Indies he doesn’t hesitate. Hope is what drives him – the thought that maybe he will find some peace of mind on the other side of the world.

He doesn’t.

Will regrets his decision the moment they make land and encounter the native people who live there. No one but him sees beyond the gold they wear, sees how wrong it is to take them captive and force them to reveal the source of it. His heart is the only one that aches when Columbus notes how primitive their weapons are, how easy it would be to conquer them and take all that glimmering gold and the land it comes from for themselves.

Will returns to England a year later, and grieves not only for what he couldn’t stop from happening, but for what he fears the future will hold.

* * *

**1543**

Sometimes it feels like the world around him revolves faster than Will can keep track of. The senseless slaughter in the Americas continues, the church becomes divided when Martin Luther publishes his Ninety-five Theses, and King Henry VIII first executes his trusted friend Sir Thomas More and then his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Will has known Sir Thomas More personally, has exchanged several letters with him over the years and been grateful for his friendship. He mourns his loss in private.

It doesn’t take long until his own time comes to lose his head by order of the king. When the axe swings down, Will wonders for a brief second if maybe this will be it: his final death.

It is not. Of course it is not, Will thinks bitterly. His head regrows even if it takes a long time and hurts like hell. In the end he lives, just like he always does, and claws his way back to the Earth through layers of mud.

It’s not even ten years later when Nicolaus Copernicus publishes a new, radical theory that puts the sun and not the Earth in the centre of the universe. Will isn’t much of a scholar, not yet, but where other people are outraged by the mere notion Will finds himself intrigued. He starts to read more, to learn as much as possible, and somewhere along the way he finds a new purpose for himself.

His neck still itches from time to time where the blade of the axe cut it off.

* * *

**1665**

Despite the many advances made in science – like Galileo Galilei showing that Copernicus’s theory of the planets moving around the sun was _right_ – Will doesn’t like to think back to the 1600’s. The Thirty Years’ War happens, a result of the church splitting up into Catholics and Protestants. Will is in the middle of it, trying to make the best of his unwanted immortality by saving as many people as he can.

It’s hopeless, though. He has never seen so much death in his entire life, so much ruin wilfully caused by men. Whom the war doesn’t kill, famine gets. It is a devastating, miserable time. Will doesn’t remember how often he dies in those dark years, but it is a lot.

Only a year after the war begins, the first slaves are shipped to Jamestown, and when it finally ends slavery is made legal. Will weeps for all those precious souls that become lost as a result of it. He feels helpless in the midst of so much cruelty, so much blind ignorance, and almost welcomes his death when the Great Plague of London kills him.

Once again he entertains the thought, that foolish hope he just can’t seem to shake, that this time he will die for good. His first death had been caused by the plague, so he thinks it would be kind of poetic if his last one was caused by it too.

The universe, it turns out, doesn’t care much for poetry.

* * *

**1793**

The 1700’s are just as full of war and death as the centuries that came before. Will is so tired of it. He fights in the Seven Years’ War, and then in the American Revolutionary War. He doesn’t have much choice, not when he knows that his presence, his death, may mean the survival of someone else – someone who won’t get back on their feet when the bullet strikes them. He does the best he can to avoid unnecessary bloodshed by his own hands but like always it is inevitable. No matter what he does or doesn’t do – it’s never enough.

There are times it feels like he will never get the blood off his hands.

The French Revolution happens next, and it’s a whole different kind of ugly affair. Will watches it from afar, and when the king and queen of France are executed, he doesn’t wince in sympathy even as he feels the phantom pain of a sharp blade cutting his neck.

He’s learned not to get attached to people by now. After over four hundred years of existence, he is painfully aware that he will only lose them in the end, one way or another. They always die – either of old age or in battle, screaming for their mothers as their blood drenches the earth – or he does. It never ends well when the latter happens, when he tries to explain why he doesn’t stay dead. Over the years he’s been called a monster, a witch and an abomination among other things. There are only a handful of times when people were not afraid of him that he can remember, and those instances were worse than all those times Will had been forced to watch the people he cared about shrink away from him in fear. He learned the hard way that jealousy and desperation are powerful motivators and can make people do unspeakable things to others – that compassion has no place in the pursuit of eternal life.

At some point, he simply stopped befriending people to spare both himself and them the pain that always followed. It is only after a few decades have gone by that Will begins to realize what that means: he will be alone for the rest of his life.

He drinks himself to death that night and wakes up the next morning without even a headache to show for it.

Will doesn’t know what makes him different, why out of all the people on Earth _he_ was granted immortality, but it feels more like a curse than a gift. He is tired of watching the light fade from people’s eyes and never come back.

He is tired of his own returning every time he dies.

* * *

**1815**

Napoleon tears across Europe and proclaims himself Emperor of France. Will fights against him, dies, and lives to fight another day. It’s what his life has come down to: fight for or against one thing or another. The centuries and their endless wars are beginning to blur together in his mind. He starts to forget the specifics surrounding the battles he’s been in but never the bloody faces or torn bodies left behind in their wake. They continue to haunt his dreams, and there are nights when he wakes up shaking and with bile already rising in his throat.

All those horrible things he has seen and done – it’s too much for one single soul to bear. He feels the consequences of his existence killing him from the inside, and it’s a slow, painful death, one he hasn’t experienced before and never wants to again.

He comes back to life with a deep, agonized breath, and for the first time since his first death in 1349 he is not alone. A woman with kind eyes and a sad smile looks down at him, her hair gently falling around her tired face.

“I’ve been searching for you for a long time,” she tells him softly. “My name is Elisabeth.”

“I’m Will,” Will says automatically. Then he frowns up at her, not understanding what this means. “Who are you?”

She lets out a weary sigh and holds his hand. “I’m like you.”

* * *

**1827**

Will is not alone anymore, and that changes everything. Elisabeth brightens his life like a star lights up the night sky, and Will is beyond grateful for her presence. Where before there had been only war and death and suffering in his life, now there is hope in it once more. He begins to see the beauty in things again, begins to appreciate the birdsong waking him in the morning and the way the sun colours the sky in shades of red and pink and orange and yellow at dusk.

It feels marvellous.

Will once asks her if there are others like them out there but she shakes her head. “Not anymore.”

It’s a revelation, to realize that he can die and stay dead, that someday his time will come just like it does for everyone else. He feels comforted by that thought, relieved beyond measure.

Even though he’s curious, he never asks Elisabeth how old she is. He does not dare to prod at the grief of centuries spent alone that she carries on her thin shoulders. He knows how she feels, even if he’s younger than her, and that alone helps. When she dreams of things that happened long before he was born, he holds her hand and whispers to her that she is not alone anymore.

Neither of them is, and that’s enough for both of them.

They are in Berlin, attending one of Alexander von Humboldt’s lectures, when Elisabeth turns to him and says in a hushed whisper, “I met him once in South America. What an incredible man. So young and enthusiastic about _everything_.” She lets out a heavy sigh. “I wish he was like us. The world needs more people like him.”

More scientists, is what she means. More people with their hearts in the right place, striving to make the world a better place.

Looking at Alexander von Humboldt and seeing the way his eyes light up when he talks about his travels and discoveries with a passion that is unrivalled, Will can’t help but agree.

* * *

**1901**

After centuries of being alone, Elisabeth finds someone to give her heart to.

“This is James,” she says with a smile that’s so peaceful it takes Will’s breath away.

She introduces Will as her younger brother, and even though James is something unexpected, something Will would have never seen coming, Will gladly shakes his hand.

“It is nice to meet you, James.”

James has a lovely smile, a funny sense of humour and he makes Elisabeth laugh anew with every silly poem he composes just for her. For the first time since Will has known her, Elisabeth looks happy and at peace. Her eyes light up with love whenever she speaks of James, and as the years pass their affections for each other only grow deeper.

With lives like theirs, it’s more than he could have ever hoped for, and even though he can’t help but worry for the future, Will chooses not to remain quiet about it because he wants Elisabeth to be able to enjoy this unburdened happiness for as long as she can. It is only when James asks for her hand in marriage that he pulls her aside and finally puts his reservations into words.

“Are you sure about this, Beth? You know he is not like us.”

Elisabeth smiles at him, beautiful and sad.

“You’re right,” she says with quiet acceptance. “I know our time together is short. I know I will lose him – probably long before he dies.” She reaches for Will’s hand. “But I’m tired of being alone, Will. I’m tired of merely existing in this world. I want to _live_ , and I want to live with him. I know the pain it will cause me, and I shall bear it gladly.”

Will can do nothing but squeeze her hand in reassurance and support. “And I will be there for you when that time comes. Always.”

Six months later, he walks her down the aisle. She has never looked more radiant than when she kisses her husband for the first time.

* * *

**1908**

It takes a long time until Elisabeth’s marriage is blessed with children. The years go by, and Will can see how it weighs on her.

“I fear I might not be able to carry a child,” she confesses to Will one night when James has to work late. Her eyes are full of unspoken grief when she places her hand on her flat stomach. “Maybe children are not something we are supposed to have.”

Will’s heart breaks at the thought. The life they lead is hard enough as it is and he refuses to believe that the universe would deny them this on top of everything else as well. So he takes her hand in his and says with the best smile he can muster, “Have a little faith, Beth.”

Seven years into her marriage, Elisabeth finally becomes pregnant. Will is almost as ecstatic as she is when she tells him, and along with James he is right there to hold her hand when she gives birth to a beautiful baby girl. The baby is struggling to breathe when she comes into the world, and while both James and the midwife hover over the tiny, perfect thing, encouraging her to breathe, Will stays by Elisabeth’s side and feels her life quietly slipping away as she bleeds out internally. He continues to hold her hand, silently begging her to come back to him, to not leave her family now that her daughter is finally here.

It takes only a few seconds until Elisabeth gasps awake but to Will it feels like a lifetime. Her daughter utters her first cry only a moment later.

Will hides his face in his hands and lets out a shuddering breath.

* * *

**1914**

The first time Will dons his new uniform he feels sick to his stomach. All he can think is, _It’s happening again._ He is not ready to go back to war. He doesn’t think he ever will be. Elisabeth’s eyes are sympathetic when she finds him sitting on his bed with his head hanging.

“I would come with you if I could,” she whispers into his neck as she holds him tight.

Will reaches for her hand. “I know. But your place is here with your children.”

He doesn’t tell her that he’s glad she doesn’t have to fight. She already knows that. They don’t like seeing each other die and no matter how often it happens, it never gets easier. It leaves them both fighting nightmares for weeks afterwards. Will is relieved he can spare her that suffering.

He is relieved he himself will be spared from it as well.

When it’s time to go, Elisabeth presses a photograph into his hands. It’s of her and the girls, and Will’s throat closes up when he reads the message on the back. _Come back to us_.

He looks at her and swallows back tears. “You know I will,” he chokes out.

As gently as the morning dawn gracing the meadows she touches his temples with her trembling fingertips. “Not just your body,” she murmurs. “In here, too.”

Will hugs her close. He doesn’t know it then but more than a year will go by until he sees her again.

* * *

**1915**

Will dies thrice in his first year in France. The first time happens when he takes a bullet for a friend. His name is Andrew. He is a little older than Will but not as world-weary yet. No one possibly could be, except Elisabeth.

Will likes him. There’s something about the way he talks, always cracking a joke no matter how miserable the situation is, that soothes the rough edges of his heart. Andrew has a wife back home and two little girls, and when he talks about them his eyes light up just like Elisabeth’s do when she talks about James and her own two precious daughters. He can’t wait to go see them again, he says. His leave is coming up in a week.

When Will comes back to life in the middle of the battlefield, his uniform is bloody and riddled with bullet holes but his skin is as smooth and unblemished as ever. He crawls back to his unit and they welcome him with tired but open arms. They’re all used to this by now, to him miraculously surviving attack after attack. He spins a tale for them that has his comrades nodding in agreement – as if it is normal for barbed wire to leave behind perfectly round holes in army uniforms when it catches on them – and then he looks around for Andrew.

The soldiers next to him grow quiet. It’s his sergeant who finally tells him the news.

“Andrew got shot,” he says. “I’m sorry, Will. He didn’t make it.”

Will thinks of Andrew’s wife, of his two little girls that most likely won’t even remember their father in a few years’ time, and swallows back tears.

He hates this war.

He hates this life.

* * *

**1916 – Spring**

It is a relief to be able to go home and see Elisabeth again after nearly two years of being stuck in the mud of France. Will has died ten times by then, maybe more. He doesn’t count anymore, and he doesn’t care. He knows he’s been getting more reckless, more careless with his life, and he knows Elisabeth can see it in his eyes when he finally steps off the train and into her waiting arms

They hold each other close, and when she pulls back to look at him she gently touches his temple and whispers, “Oh Will.”

Her empathy is hard to bear, so Will turns to her little girls instead.

“My ladies,” he greets them with a little bow.

They giggle and run up to him to wrap their tiny arms around his legs. They have grown so much in the months he’s been gone, and Will feels a weight fall from his shoulders when he realizes that he is no stranger to them despite the time they spent apart. He holds them close and buries his face in their sweet-smelling hair before he looks up at Elisabeth again and whispers a heartfelt, “Thank you.”

When the time comes to leave them a week later, it breaks his heart to see the girls’ eyes welling up with tears. They beg him to stay, their tiny fingers desperately grasping at his uniform, and Will has never felt such sorrow in his life before. They are so young – too young to understand what exactly he is going back to – and yet they know enough to be scared for him.

They are victims of the war just like everyone else is.

Will wants to tell them that they have no reason to be afraid, not for him at least. Their father is the one who is truly in danger, and Will worries about him more and more with each day that passes without news. They haven’t heard from James in several weeks and even though Elisabeth tries not to show it, Will can see how much it weighs on her – the waiting, the helplessness. He hates it and desperately wishes he could do more.

He can’t, not for Elisabeth, but he can spare his nieces the unnecessary pain of saying goodbye again. The next time his leave comes up, he politely declines the opportunity to go home. Will misses them and it hurts to stay away, but he’d rather not see his family until the war is over than cause them anymore grief.

* * *

**1916 – Winter**

A century ago, Will promised himself he would never allow a mortal close again. No matter how much Elisabeth insists that he needs friends he knows war of all things is neither the time nor place for friendship. Andrew was proof of that. Will has seen so many good people die already – too many, in this war and all the others that came before it. He took bullets for them, gave them his own gas mask so they could breathe, volunteered for their missions so they could be safe, but nothing he did ever changed the outcome. They all ultimately died, one after another, and every time Will comes back to life, he finds himself alone once more, cursed to carry on until the universe decides his time to die has finally come.

And then Thomas Blake happens. He’s young, with a cheeky smile that lights up his face, the most earnest blue eyes Will has ever seen – and the most annoying inability to know when to shut up. Tom Blake talks like a rapidly flowing river headed for a waterfall. He doesn’t care if people are listening to him, and he doesn’t care when they tell him to go away.

Will has experienced all of that first-hand. 

For some reason he can’t fathom, Tom has decided on the day they first met that they were destined to become the best of friends. No matter where Will goes, Tom goes with him, trailing after him like a lost puppy. Will wants to push him away, wants to scream in his face that Tom will soon die, that Will can’t bear to carry anymore grief and guilt on his weary soul.

He never does, though. Somehow the thought of being responsible for the light dimming in Tom’s eyes even before death snuffs it out is even harder to bear than the fear of losing him one day is. Will knows he can live with the latter – has done so many times before.

He’s not so sure he can live with killing Tom’s spirit with his own angry words.

So he keeps Tom at arm’s length, calls him Blake to distance himself, and prays that for once in his long miserable existence the universe won’t take this precious person away from him.

The universe, as always, doesn’t listen.

* * *

**1917 – April 6 th **

Despite Will’s best efforts, Tom has wormed his way into his heart by the time spring comes around. There’s a peculiar feeling in Will’s chest whenever he looks at Tom, as if the sun shines just a little bit brighter or the night is just a little bit less cold when he is graced by Tom’s smile, and he wonders if that’s how Elisabeth felt when she fell in love with James all those years ago.

Over the months, Will has made his peace with it. Tom is an unstoppable force, and Will is tired of being alone. He’s so, so tired, and he thinks he has been for a very long time.

Elisabeth’s words keep ringing in his head: “I’m tired of merely existing in this world. I want to _live_ , and I want to live with him. I know the pain it will cause me, and I shall bear it gladly.”

For the first time Will thinks he truly understands what she meant back then. Some things – some _people_ – are worth the pain, and Tom is clearly one of them. So Will finally allows Tom close, allows him into his life and into his heart and does whatever can to protect him from harm so they can make the best of what little time they have together.

When General Erinmore announces their mission on a cold April morning in 1917, Will is terrified – not for himself, but for Tom. It’s a suicide mission thinly veiled as a rescue operation, and he knows the chances of delivering the message to the Second Devons are slim at best. They all know that. And yet he also knows that they will go anyway. The life of Tom’s brother is on the line, and over the last few months Will has heard Tom talk about his family often enough to know that he would do anything to save his brother.

Will doesn’t try to talk him out of it but he tries to caution him. Tom, predictably, doesn’t listen. There’s only one thought on his mind as they hurry through the trenches and for once it’s not food. All Will can do is follow him and try to keep up with the unrelenting pace he sets. It’s only when it’s time to climb the ladders that he finally gets Tom to stop with a hand on his arm.

“Age before beauty.”

No Man’s Land is as desolate and terrifying as Will remembers it from his various deaths over the years. It’s still as deadly too he realizes when he slices his hand open on rusty old barbed wire. Blood seeps out of the wound and before it can close he accidentally plunges his hand into a rotting corpse, making matters even worse. Were he mortal, this little wound would almost certainly mean death for him. Blood poisoning is a slow and painful way to die. He’s seen it happening often enough to be glad that he’s the one who cut his hand and not Tom.

By the time he is finally able to wrap a bandage around the cut, his hand has already healed and the bandage is more for keeping up pretence than anything else.

The German bunker is another matter. Will dies in there, in the explosion, and when he wakes up it feels like a mountain came crashing down on him. He can’t see, can’t breathe, but he can hear Tom’s voice and he holds onto him when they run out of the darkness. Will’s nerves are frayed when they finally make it outside, and he can’t help but remember an awful day back in 1860 when he got buried in a cave in and it took Elisabeth and a whole town an entire day to dig him out. He died then too, and came back to life only to die again beneath the rubble. It went on like that for hours, relentless and ruthless, until Elisabeth had finally found him.

Will has hated underground spaces ever since.

For one horrible moment, he lets his frustrations and fears out on Tom. He knows Tom does not deserve his harsh tone but Will’s heart is still hammering in his chest in absolute terror and he can’t help but lash out at the only person that’s within reach. He regrets his words immediately but doesn’t know how to apologize for them without telling Tom the truth behind them, so he doesn’t. He lets them hang in the air between them for a moment before he steers the conversation in a different, safer direction.

When Tom later tells him the story about Wilko Will recognizes the peace offering for what it is and accepts it even though he knows that he deserves neither Tom’s patience nor his forgiveness.

He doesn’t deserve _Tom_. Never has, never will.

The universe apparently agrees with him because Tom bleeds out in his arms only minutes later after Will turns away from him for only a few second. He kills the German pilot without thinking. There is nothing he can do for Tom, though – that much becomes clear when precious blood keeps seeping out beneath Will’s shaking fingers. He holds Tom close and tries to remember what he looked like when he wasn’t pale with pain and scared.

This is not how Will wants to remember him.

When he reaches for Tom’s hand their fingers intertwine. It feels right in a way nothing ever has in Will’s life before, and Will’s heart cracks and breaks and shatters when Tom stops breathing and his hand goes slack.

Will has died a hundred different deaths over the centuries, has watched Elisabeth die over a dozen times since he’s known her, and yet seeing the light fade from Tom’s eyes is so much worse. There’s a grief inside him that’s so overwhelming that there are no words for it, a pain that settles in his bones and makes him ache with every breath he takes.

Silently, he watches Tom’s face, hopes against hope that he’s like Will and will gasp back to life any moment now.

Tom remains still and quiet.

Will doesn’t want to leave him behind but in the end he must because he has a mission to complete, another Blake to save. With every step he takes away from the farmhouse he struggles a little more to comprehend the weight of all that he has lost.

It is more than ever before.

* * *

**1917 – April 7 th**

He dies again in Écoust.

Will doesn’t know if it’s just bad luck or his grief making him careless but the fall down the stairs cracks his head wide open and breaks his spine. It takes him hours to regain consciousness again. Headwounds are always tricky like that. You can function with half a lung or a regrowing liver, but you can’t function without your brain intact.

When he comes back to life it is dark and he realizes he is running out of time. And yet when he happens upon the French girl with the baby, he can’t help but linger. Her face is gentle and kind, but her eyes are old and weary. She looks familiar in a way Will can’t quite place, and when she urges him to stay with her Will is tempted to follow her request, if only to protect her and the precious life she is trying to keep save.

The aching hole in his heart reminds him of why he has to go, though, so he gives the girl all the food and water he has and continues on through Ècoust. It isn’t long until he happens upon some Germans in the city and he is forced to take a life. Will knows it is a mistake, and he knows he will regret later, but for now he pushes that thought to the back of his mind and keeps running through the city as fast as he can, the enemy close behind him.

When he happens upon a bridge he doesn’t hesitate.

He jumps.

He’s dead from a bullet in his back before he even hits the water. When he opens his eyes again he’s drowning, and he uses what little strength he still has left to push for the surface. The moment he breaks it he gasps for air. His body is trying to expel the bullet from his flesh and the water from his lungs at the same time and it’s all Will can do to hold on to a log and stay afloat after that. He’s exhausted, both physically and mentally. He’s never died so often in such a short period of time (except during that cave in but he refuses to think about that) and he feels drained. Even the instinctive act of breathing feels like too much.

He is so tired he begins to toy with the idea of letting go of the log and letting the river take him. It would grant him another minute of reprieve, nothing more, but it is tempting nonetheless. He feels his eyes falling close, his fingertips slipping from the wet bark, when white blossoms suddenly fill the water around him. Will stares at them in incomprehension for a moment before he reaches out to touch them.

They are cherry blossoms, and he realizes he knows that because Tom once told him about them.

Tom.

Sweet, kind-hearted Tom who is now lying dead in a field far behind him and counts on Will to deliver the message to Colonel Mackenzie so his brother won’t have to die today. Will doesn’t want to let him down, not now, not ever. Not even in death.

Especially not in death.

So he gathers up the last bit of his strength and crawls ashore. With nothing else to hold onto he uses dead and bloated bodies as leverage to push himself out of the freezing river. The moment he feels cold earth beneath his fingers Will wants nothing more than to sob and weep.

For once, the universe grants him a small reprieve. He finds the Second Devons in the woods, and when he runs across the battlefield to reach Colonel Mackenzie, no stray bullet, no shell, no soldier stops him.

In the end the attack is called off, and Will finds Tom’s brother bloody but alive. He gives him Tom’s rings but can’t find the words to tell him what Tom meant to him, how much he changed Will’s life for the better. Joe, just like Tom, is kind about it even though Will can see how much the loss of his younger brother weighs on him. His eyes are like Tom’s, and Will can’t bear the pain he sees in them.

He turns away from it and almost blindly stumbles to a tree in the middle of a field and sinks down beneath it. It feels good to rest, and with the weight of the world on his shoulders and no outlet for his despair, his fingers automatically reach for the little tin that keeps all his precious possessions safe. He looks at the picture of Elisabeth and her daughters, at the words written on its back, and misses them more fiercely than he has in weeks, maybe even months.

His eyes fall close.

It’s the exhaustion that kills him this time – the lack of food and water he desperately needs after dying several deaths in just a few hours. Death takes a toll on one’s body, and Will’s just can’t take any more.

He is too tired and weary to care.

* * *

**1917 – April 7 th, later **

When Will jerks back to life he’s face to face with Tom’s brother.

“Are you okay?” Joe asks him.

Will suppresses the urge to let out a harsh laugh. He hasn’t been okay in centuries. He’s exhausted and lonely, and his heart aches with more loss than any mortal person can possibly fathom. It’s not Joe’s fault, though, so Will gives him a tired smile and says, “I will be.”

It’s been the truth for the last five-hundred years, and will continue to be the truth for as long as the universe pulls him back from death every time he dies.

Joe frowns and wordlessly holds out a canteen to him. Will gulps down the water like a drowning man. It’s not enough but it’s a start, and when he’s drained it to the last drop he gives Joe a grateful nod. “Thank you.”

Joe’s lips twitch but he doesn’t smile. Grief is etched into his face like canyons into the mountains. He looks as old as Will feels.

“I assume you will be going back to the 8th?”

It’s not really a question but Will answers anyway. “Yes.”

Joe points backwards over his shoulder. “Mess tent’s that way,” he says. “Make sure you eat something before you leave.” He pauses and fixes Will with a look. “I mean it. Don’t fall asleep again.”

They share another handshake before Joe fades into a sea of uniforms and Will is alone once more. He dreads going back. Going back means retracing his steps and only sorrow lies that way. He still pushes himself to his feet though, knowing he has no choice, and secures the empty canteen at his hip. His steps are a bit unsteady as he walks to the mess tent, and his head is still pounding from the blow it took in Écoust, but Will knows he cannot linger with the Second Devons until the after effects of his deaths have passed. He did what he came to do, and now the only way forward for him is to go back.

He grabs some soup in the mess tent – watery, tasteless but hot – refills his canteen with precious water and leaves Tom’s brother and the Second Devons behind. The sun is low in the sky when he sets out, already about to sink behind the horizon, but Will marches on. The dark has stopped bothering him a long time ago. There is nothing in it that can harm him, not anymore. Physical pain never lasts. It may echo in his bones when he returns to life but it doesn’t stay with him, not like the pain in his heart does.

It’s that pain that he fears, the one that makes his insides twist and turn in grief and haunts his days and nights, leaving him feeling helpless and out of control of his own life. Will knows he will dream of Tom’s face for years to come, that he will feel the phantom slickness of Tom’s blood on his hands and scrub at them for days, making them bleed again and again and again in his desperation to feel anything but that.

Will knows he won’t be able to let Tom go – not after he held Will’s heart in his hands without ever knowing about it.

He will regret that for the rest of his life.

* * *

**1917 – April 8 th **

At an abandoned farmhouse, next to a ruined barn and a cut-down orchard, the sun rises as a stomach wound slowly knits itself back together.

Tom Blake comes back to life with a painful gasp.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked the fic! I've been toying around with the idea of writing another chapter from Tom's perspective but I also like the ending as it is, so I guess let me know what you would prefer :)
> 
> You can also find me [here](https://ailendolin.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.


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